Mother's Day Gifts, Maps, Mary project, our Lake field trip, and Five for Friday!

10 May 2014

Hello Friends!I have a love/hate relationship with May! On the one hand, it is a beautiful month filled with the anticipation of summer. On the other hand, as a teacher, it is month filled with paperwork, organizing, and pressure to get everything finished before the end of the year! Yikes!!Here is a glimpse of some of the things we did this year....... AND for the first time in MONTHS, I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday (despite the fact that it is Saturday morning!) You will find the link to Five for Friday at the end of this post!1. Thanks to Kathy Griffin, we made the CUTEST Mother's Day gifts this year! Here is the link to her blog post about these gifts! They are ADORABLE! http://kathygriffinteach.blogspot.com/2014/04/fun-mothers-day-gifts.html

Here are the cards we made. They wrote the cutest stories for their Moms for the inside, but I forgot to take photos of them... sorry about that!

And of course, we made the traditional flower pot painting....... This was just the cutest project!

2. We did a mini Mapping unit this week. No matter their skill level, kids just seem to love creating maps. We discussed MANY things in our unit; map legends (keys), physical/manmade features, elevation maps, maps vs globes, and compass rose. At the end of the unit, my kiddos created their own maps and I was really, really proud of their results!

I am thinking that next week, I might give them an independent assignment to create a pirate map - so fun for the end of school and the beginning of summer!Here is the link to my mapping unit if you are interested!

3. We are lucky to live near some really awesome Nature Preserves! Even in the middle of corn and bean country, our kiddos can experience nature in a hands-on way! This past week we took a field trip to one of them and it was a wonderful experience! The weather was delightful and we were able to see many plants and animals that we have been learning about in science this year.

4. For those of you looking for an easy and lovely way to honor Mary this month, here is what we did this week. I printed a pretty picture of Mary that my kiddos used watercolors to paint. They used skin colored crayons to color her face, though. When dry, I cut them into a circle/oval shape. My kinders glued them to the bottom of a Chinette plate. Then they used tissue paper balls to decorate the outside of the plate. I think they turned out beautiful!

My team mate used a different image and they turned out cute, too!

5. And finally, look what my wonderful son showed up with last night! I am so blessed to have 3 wonderful children!